Chapter 24
The Lyra limped into Troms? fjord twenty-four hours after the attack.
The ship’s survival was one miracle. Getting her back to port was another.
While the oversized life jacket Kurt and Joe had rigged up was enough to keep her afloat, the ship could not make much headway without the danger of ripping the blocky inflation bags off the hull.
With the engine room flooded, the captain used the bow thrusters and a small trolling motor that extended and retracted from the underside of the hull for propulsion.
The combination of systems allowed for very precise station keeping.
And the captain used them to keep the Lyra steady with the bow angled into the waves at roughly fifteen degrees.
This allowed the hull to absorb most of the incoming energy from the passing swells, which protected the lifting bags without exposing the ship to a constant back-and-forth rolling motion.
With Kurt, Paul, and Gamay all suffering from hypothermia to one extent or another, the captain restricted them to the sick bay, while allowing Joe to work with the repair crews down below.
The repair process was straightforward, but dangerous.
The holes had to be patched up and water had to be pumped out faster than it came in.
That meant using divers inside the flooded compartments to clear the debris, cut away the bent, jagged sections of hull plating, and weld temporary patches over the openings.
The damaged compartment below the engine room was handled first. Over a two-hour time frame, the damaged sections were cut away.
A patch made of sheet metal, backed by plywood and braced by steel pipes and two-by-fours, created an adequate temporary seal.
The pumps would remove half the water over the next hour or so, but some water would be left in the lower half of the compartment to act as additional weight, which would help counteract the outside pressure.
The hole in the forward compartment was repaired in a similar manner.
But the massive amount of damage done where the penetrator had torn into the bulkhead between compartments three and four required a different solution.
There was no way to adequately shore up the damage on both sides of the hole without putting immense stress on the damaged and weakened bulkhead.
If it failed, the hull plating would buckle around it and the ship might break at the bend.
Looking for a solution that would allow them to sail, Joe and the ship’s damage-control officer came up with a plan that would push the water out and replace it with something lighter.
Two factors determine how much weight a flooded compartment adds.
The volume of the compartment and what engineers call permeability.
Flooding in an empty compartment, like a cargo hold, would add maximum weight to the ship as it fills up.
A compartment of the same size, filled with incompressible material like solid plastic blocks, would take on much less water and therefore much less weight, because most of the space is already occupied.
While the Lyra wasn’t hauling a cargo of plastic blocks, it still carried plenty of salvage materials.
The lifting bags placed on the outside of the hull had been the primary means to raise the EAGL if they’d found it, but there were dozens of additional bladders and floats of various shapes and sizes, some of which were designed to attach to other surfaces of the aircraft or go inside the fuselage.
Joe decided these could be put to work inside the hull, but pressure was the problem.
He explained it this way. “If we inflate those bags inside the hull the water will compress them, raising the pressure in the compartment. The pressure increase might blow open the watertight doors or crack the bulkhead, and then we’ll be right back where we started, flooding and sinking. ”
The captain understood. “I’ve seen the deck of a flooded barge blown sky-high when someone tried to use high-pressure air to force water out of the hold. Would rather avoid that if we can.”
“So would I,” Joe said. “What we need is a liquid. As a rule, liquids don’t compress. Filling the bladders with a liquid will force the water out without raising the pressure inside the compartment.”
“Well, we’re surrounded by a liquid,” the captain joked, “but seawater is what we’re trying to get rid of. I assume you have something else in mind?”
“This ship runs on turbines,” Joe said. “They use kerosene. Basically Jet A. The same fuel we put in the helicopter.”
The look on the captain’s face suggested he didn’t like where this was headed. “And…”
“High-grade kerosene is twenty-five percent lighter than seawater,” Joe said.
“If we fill the other bladders with kerosene and secure them to the bottom deck inside the flooded compartments, they’ll force the water out while lightening our load at the same time.
And as an added benefit, you haven’t increased the weight of the ship at all, just moved fuel from one place to another. ”
The captain frowned. “You want me to fill an entire compartment of my ship with an explosive liquid?”
“Two compartments actually.”
The captain shook his head, even though he accepted the idea. “I suppose if we blow ourselves up instead of sinking, at least we go out with a bang.”
“We should be fine, liquid kerosene is not explosive,” Joe said. “Only the vapors are. They have a flash point around a hundred forty degrees. With the seawater inside that compartment hovering around the freezing point there’s little risk of evaporation or vapors building up.”
The captain rubbed the stubble on his face, looking thoughtful but also weary. “You and Kurt have been right so far. Check with the chief engineer. If he says it’s okay, then you have my blessing. Just don’t blow up my ship.”
It would take four hours, some ingenuity with the fuel pumps, and multiple dives to complete the task.
When the job was finished, the opening partially sealed, the bulkhead was reenforced and the Lyra was riding high enough that the tops of the original lifting bags could be seen above the water. It was a remarkable transition.
With some trepidation, the original lifting bags were deflated and hauled back on board.
The ship got underway, making a respectable eight knots.
By nightfall she was approaching the nearest port.
A small fishing village named Kaldfjord, which was dwarfed by the cliffs of the Troms? fjord surrounding it.
The village had a population of about five thousand people.
It had once been much smaller, but after oil was discovered nearby, one of Norway’s large energy companies had come in and built out the harbor, installing large modern docks and a breakwater.
The docks were barely used now, as a pipeline had replaced most of the ship traffic in and out of the fjord.
Inching its way down the fjord, the Lyra eased through the placid waters toward the lighted quay, with Kurt, Joe, and the captain standing on the bridgewing triumphantly.
Spotting a large, red-hulled ship moored directly across the harbor from where they would berth took most of the joy out of the moment. The Lyra had made for the nearest port in the storm. It just happened to be Troms?. But the Chinese had obviously rushed here and beat them to it.
“What do you suppose they’re doing here?” Joe asked.
“I don’t know,” Kurt said. “But something tells me we’d better find out.”
—
From the communications suite, Kurt put a call into Washington. After a brief delay he was connected with Rudi Gunn. He looked tanned and well rested.
“Glad to see you returned safely from the epic dangers of wine country,” Kurt joked.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Rudi replied. “If you mistake a Pinot Grigio for a Gavi, you’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Wish I had your problems,” Kurt said. “We’ve made it to Troms?. We’re docking now.”
Rudi knew that already. He’d been watching every inch of their progress on a computer screen.
“Glad you’re all safe. I read the captain’s report.
All four of you are in for commendations.
In your case, you may have invented a new industry: preemptive salvage.
The Navy is thinking about installing inflation bags on their fleet.
It might cost millions, but if it saves one ship, it’s worth it. ”
“Great,” Kurt said. “Any chance I’ll get some royalties?”
“Better,” Rudi said. “You’ll get credit on Wikipedia.”
Kurt laughed. “I guess it will have to do. In the meantime, we have a job to finish. I figured limping into port was going to put us out of the action. Funny thing, the Chinese beat us to it. They’re docked on the other side of the harbor. Any idea why?”
“New information has come to light,” Rudi said. “A couple of fishermen claimed they heard a large, invisible aircraft crossing over the fjord at low altitude the night the EAGL disappeared.”
“Invisible?”
“They couldn’t see it in the dark of night,” Rudi explained, “but they could hear it. Assuming the aircraft was real and was traveling in a blacked-out mode without lights, it makes sense.”
“Which way did it go?”
“Seems to be some disagreement on that,” Rudi said. “But considering the sound would echo off the walls of the fjord, that’s understandable. Considering their differing locations, it seems likely that the aircraft was traveling southeast, that is, directly down the mouth of the fjord.”
Kurt found himself mildly irritated. “How long have you been sitting on this?”
“A couple of hours,” Rudi said. “We knew you were headed to Troms? already. We didn’t want you busting the seals on that ship trying to get there a little quicker. Besides, it gave us time to arrange another satellite pass.”
“And?”
“Nothing to report,” Rudi said. “No wreckage, no burn scars in the tree line, no plane sitting on a valley road or an abandoned runway somewhere. Our best guess remains a water landing followed by controlled submersion.”
Kurt thought that sounded reasonable. The surface of the fjord was placid in comparison to the rolling waves of the Arctic Ocean.
It made for an easier landing and simpler, safer egress from the plane.
But there were drawbacks. Unlike the flat abyssal plain of the Arctic, the fjords were cut in deep V-shaped grooves by the glaciers that gouged them out.
It made for a more difficult salvage operation.
“Get us a good chart of the fjord,” Kurt asked.
“If there are any shelves or shallows, I want to look into them immediately.”
“Working on it now. Should have the most accurate scan available in about an hour,” Rudi said. “What are you going to do in the meantime?”
“I’m going to remind the Chinese that we’re still in the race.”
“Normally, I’d warn you not to go too far,” Rudi said. “But having briefed Sandecker and the President on what happened, you may consider anything short of blowing them out of the water to be preapproved.”